Brown promises three million new homes

Gordon Brown yesterday promised a new drive to help people get on the housing ladder by building three million new homes by 2020.

He put tackling the housing shortage at the top of his agenda as he broke with years of tradition by pre-empting the autumn Queen's Speech setting out the Government's legislative programme for the next session of Parliament.

Mr Brown said he would make new house building a "national priority" - as it was in the inter-war years and the 1950s, when the then Tory housing minister, Harold Macmillan, set an apparently unattainable target of 300,000 homes a year and reached it.

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The Prime Minister promised three million new homes by 2020 - up 250,000 from the previous target, with the annual target for England raised from 200,000 to 240,000 a year by 2016. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, accused Mr Brown of recycling old policies, saying that he had made similar promises on four occasions since 1994.

But every year, Labour had built fewer social houses than when the Conservatives were in office.

Mr Brown announced three Bills to speed up the planning process and bring surplus public land into housing use.But he indicated that he was having second thoughts over a windfall tax on profits from selling land for development.

He promised to keep protections on Green Belt land, though Downing Street said later that it would be up to local councils to decide on individual developments.

Up to 100,000 homes could be built on around 550 surplus sites owned by arms of central government like the Ministry of Defence and the NHS, while councils are under pressure to give up brownfield land for another 60,000.

Mr Brown said he wanted to speed the development of new "eco towns" with zero or low carbon housing. Town halls would be able to build council houses with new rules letting them borrow against future rent income.

"Putting affordable housing within the reach not just of the few but the many is vital both to meeting individual aspirations and to securing a better future for the country,'' Mr Brown said.

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is launching consultations on a new regime of "covered bonds'' to help lenders finance more affordable 20- to 25-year fixed-rate mortgages. He will report in time for possible measures in the Budget.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England welcomed Mr Brown's assurances on the Green Belt and said it was "encouraged'' by his emphasis on using brownfield sites.

The Prime Minister's statement, announcing 23 draft Bills, ended the tradition of drawing up the legislative programme in secret.

The Queen will still open the new parliamentary session with the traditional ceremony on Nov 6. The Commons leader, Harriet Harman, said the Government "firmly supports the history, tradition and value of the State Opening".

Mr Brown promised an Education and Skills Bill to ensure young people stay in education or training until the age of 18.

He also foreshadowed new measures to tackle crime and terrorism - confirming that he wanted to increase the 28-day limit on holding terrorist suspects. Mr Brown said he would aim for cross-party consensus on the issue.

The Government would review the use of intercept evidence, such as telephone taps, during terrorism trials.

Mr Cameron said the announcements repeated Labour goals and initiatives dating back a decade or more. "A long list of Bills, the same priorities and the same failures, and I have to say we've heard it all before," Mr Cameron said.

A Tory analysis of the Bills, claimed that only one, dealing with housing and regeneration, had not been announced or published in draft form. The proposal for 25-year mortgages was announced four years ago, and the aim of apprenticeships and universal education after 16 in 1996.

Mr Cameron said Mr Brown claimed to want to listen to the people but there was nothing to suggest he would respond to the 86 per cent of voters who, opinion polls suggest, want a referendum on the new European Union treaty.